Tomatoes in Chicago II: Another Tuna Sandwich
by Nothing Really Specific
Summary: Sequel to "Tomatoes in Chicago". Panchito Pistoles is a private investigator and his case has lead him to the SkyDeck of Willis Tower where there is a showdown between him and an important link in this deadly chain of events. In the end, Panchito gets help from the Cheshire Cat (Tim Burton, 2010 version).


**Tomatoes in Chicago II: Another Tuna Sandwich**

The Willis Tower is the tallest building in Chicago. Everyone knows this, I know it, the world knows it, everyone that is, expect for one person...

I stepped off the elevator on the SkyDeck floor, which is the top floor of the building. In my hand I carried a tuna sandwich with tomatoes, Sriracha sauce, jalapeños, spinach, and mustard from the Subway on North State Street.

Walking towards a window and looking out onto the city skyline, I took a bite of my sandwich. Turns out I was right. Everyone blames the tomato. I sure did. It was sour, as if it were just past the ripeness. The jalapeños were no better. They had too many seeds, as if the Subway worker held some unforeseen grudge against me, the Sriracha sauce spilled out, flowing like the jelly out of a _Krispy Kreme_ doughnut. It landed on my charro pants. They weren't in the best of shape, but I did just have them taken to the dry cleaners. Personally, I didn't care about that right now.

Two nights before, I had the night of my career as a private investigator. A drug lord by the name of Jose Gonzales, and his associate, Hannibal Lector. Yes, I'm serious, that was the man's name. Shame on the mother for naming her child after a serial killer. Granted a fictional serial killer, but a serial killer nonetheless.

To my left was a family of four. A mother and three kids. The window, which was about three inches thick, was shattered and sealed off to prevent anyone from getting too close. The repairmen would come on Monday. It was Saturday. 6:00 pm, the sun was beginning to set.

The mother looked over at me and said, "Thank you." I said nothing. I didn't have to say anything to this woman, she was awful. Threatening to throw her kids out of the window two hours earlier and her husband. My partner, James Davenport, a British peacemaker with the perfect blend of Benedict Cumberbatch and Stephen Fry. He was the nicest person in the world and he was Judge Claude Frollo in this situation.

I stared at the woman and her children. The kids were petrified, shock on their faces, as if the world had exploded in front of them. It did, literally and figuratively. They began to cry. The mother apparently had bipolar disorder because she immediately started screaming at them:

"Shut the fuck up!"

I turned towards her, my limit was reached in four words. If there's one thing you don't do, is cuss your children after they had seen their father thrown out of a three inch thick, virtually unlimited weigh window. That's the part that confused me, how could a man who weighed precisely one hundred sixty pounds be thrown out of a window by a woman who weighed roughly the same weight? It didn't make logical sense. Unless there was a piece to this puzzle that I just wasn't seeing.

The kids cried at their screaming mother, who only humiliated them further. She was probably one of those people who had a mental disorder. She was the Cheshire Cat. Smiling, laughing, acting crazy, and screaming for no reason. As if she were the number- you know which one I'm talking about. The number that has been associated with evil for the past forever, the number that if uttered would make you shutter, the number that you fear. That I fear. This woman had it on her hands, her forehead, and I was the only one who saw it.

To everyone else on the floor, for there were about seventy other people there too, who witnessed the previous and the ongoing spectacle by this woman, were now on their cell phones talking business with their executives, or playing a round of Solitaire because they had nothing better to do than to eat a tuna fish sandwich from the Subway on North State Street, like me.

An intercom came on. "Attention, the SkyDeck will be closing in thirty minutes." I walked over to a garbage can, and finished with my sandwich, threw the wrapper, the napkins, and the cookie wrapper (for I had two of them on the way up) in the garbage can. I didn't get a drink, a hindsight error.

After that music played from the intercoms, it was a classical piece by one of my favorite Russian composers. Vasily Kalinnikov, it was the second movement of his first symphony. Poor fellow died in his thirties but nonetheless, made one of the most calming pieces of music I had ever heard.

It starts off with river like riff, the water weaving through the rocks, rushing over their faces after a recent storm. The woman was still screaming.

I walked over to her, this woman must've been blind for she not to notice me, I was only six feet away.

"Senora," I said to her forcefully, "will you please take your grievances elsewhere? People are trying to enjoy the evening and you're making a fool of yourself. Not to mention that you're humiliating your niños."

"Are you telling me how to raise my children?" The woman asked, smiling like the Cheshire Cat. I half expected Cheshire to appear behind her and speak for her saying:

"We're all mad here!"

But he wouldn't do that, he may be crazy, but he's not a psychopathic murderer, at least, I don't think so anyways. I'll have to call Nivens and see about that.

I looked at the children, a boy and girl, roughly the same age, eight or nine, somewhere in that area. They both had brown hair and a ragged look, as if they were plucked out of _Les Miserables_.

I bent down to their eye level, giving them the best fatherly smile I could give, "How would you like to go and get a souvenir?" I asked. They obviously knew what I meant and nodded. I handed them each twenty dollars. They walked over to the gift shop. The woman was about to follow when I stood up and stopped her with my hand.

"Who do you think you are?" She asked me in a condescending tone. I slapped her in the face, hard as if my hand were a wooden paddle. She rubbed her face:

"You sick bastard!" She screamed.

She grabbed my throat and started strangling me. I kept my cool and breathed through my nose. She tried to wrestle me to the ground to gain more leverage, she was stronger than I thought. My mind went into private investigator mode and thought of my client who had me start on this crusade. She told me very specifically:

_This woman was involved with Gonzales and his ring. She was apparently an informant. Davenport is going undercover. Once you do that, I need you to do one more thing for me, something important came up. I need you to take care of it. I'll pay you for your work afterwards. _

I knew that part. Davenport's relationship with this woman was strictly for business matters, but the kids were from his first legitimate marriage. To be honest, I think this woman killed him because she found out that she was a cover up and she didn't take to that idea pretty well.

She fought for control, trying to gain leverage by placing her right foot behind her left and leaning in as if she were doing stretches before a marathon. The tuna sandwich was still on my breath, and I blamed the tomato for it being ill tasting. Now that I think about it, it was the tuna that was bad. If I could connect my two situations together, I would be a hell of an analogist but I'm not so I'll spare you the trouble.

Laughing, this woman had the look of a killer, as if it were her profession. Slowly she grew an advantage. I was secretly hoping that my cohort in mischief (Cheshire Cat) would appear and confuse her long enough for me to retaliate, but my cohort was busy with his own trivial matters. I began to collapse a bit on the floor, my footing which was firm, began to strain under the weight and force of this woman. One thing that I knew was, that I wasn't about to kill her-yet.

Whenever I was on the job and children were a variable, I always so concern for their well being first. Guess that's the Disney side of me, you know, when the place was still around. Now it's just an insurance company for rich businessmen and people stuck in the Chaplin situation. I still breathed through my nose. I couldn't speak because she was squeezing my throat, which was starting to take its toll by the way as I started to become dizzy and started hallucinating.

I saw an image of Donal', my amigo, who was viciously slaughtered by Marcus Aurelius Ontario who was successful in all campaigns against Parthia along with Lucius Verus Vega. Donald looked at me, smiling, welcoming me to his court, I wasn't ready to go yet. I wasn't about to die on the top floor of the Willis Tower. Justice and Nike will be left unanswered.

She bent me backwards, laughing as she did so, I fell on the floor on purpose, giving me time to retaliate for a moment. I kicked her in the stomach. The shock was starting to get to me, my vision became blurred and my brain started to shut down. I was literally beginning to die. I was hoping that she would let me go, but she didn't.

This woman's eyes were fire red, and I think she realized who I was because she started to bash my head against the floor like a rag doll. "You think you can stop me!" She cackled like one of the Weird Sisters, menacing, evil, here I was, a regular Banquo, being strangled by Lady Macbeth, her mind talked of wicked knives, bloody hands, and saying 'Hold! Hold!' as if her status depended on my death.

My face was turning blue, I could no longer breathe anymore, I collapsed into unconsciousness.

I woke up freezing cold and hanging from a noose like rope from the broken window, dangerously slipping. I calmly breathed in and out and scrambled up the rope and into the room safely.

I looked around, the woman and kids were gone, the lights were out, the place had closed for the night. The elevator doors opened.

A woman in a brown business suit and a file folder walked towards me, she was my client.

"What happened here?" She asked.

I sighed, "I was so close, and then I don't know what happened really, the only way I can describe it would be a tuna sandwich."

"A tuna sandwich?" She said, a bit confused. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the garbage can, it was sadly empty.

"Well, anyway," I said, turning towards him, "I was eating a tuna sandwich and then Harlot was humiliating these kids, this was after Davenport was chucked out of the window."

"Davenport was murdered?" She asked me.

I nodded, "I tried to save him Senora, but he-" I couldn't finish my sentence. My client didn't understand why tears were falling from my eyes, to her, Davenport was just an expendable asset, he wasn't a person to be considered. There's a reason I'm a private investigator. I like working with my partner and having an indirect relationship with my clients. The only real reason I took the job was because of the pay, that and my family was involved. Donal' was dead, my uncle is somewhere, and this woman's father, along with the rest of her family, was murdered by this gang of cocaine smugglers from Mexico, the United States, and possibly others. We suspect Nicaraguans too.

"I found someone who can help you," my client said. "He's a cat burglar but he's good. Real good. He thinks he can get you into their base of operations once you find it."

"Thanks for doing _my_ job." I said with a tone, like I said, I didn't like this woman. "Who is he?" I asked.

"He told me he's your cohort in mischief. Whatever that means."

I smiled and nodded, "I know what it means." I walked toward s the elevator and made my way down.

On the elevator, I thought to myself:

"Interesting occupation Cheshire."

The elevator doors opened.

The lobby of the Willis Tower was one of those lobbies that had a hospital smell to it, musty old building mixed with hand sanitizer and nebulizer vapors. The secretary, who smiled at me on the way up, did the same smile on the way out. I smiled back.

Cheshire stood, or floated rather, near the door. He was eating a tuna sandwich from the Subway on North State Street. The cat looked at me and waved with his tail as he was eating.

"Ahola Senor Cheshire." I said with a smile, "How are things back home for you?"

Cheshire stopped eating. "Oh you know," he said in a British accent. "A little bit of this and that. It's simply maddening!" He said excitedly, "So, how are you my Mexican amigo?" He asked.

"Just trying to breathe Cheshire," I said. Cheshire laughed to himself, "I see bruises and scars friend," he moved a bit closer to me, "'tis a shame I wasn't there to assist you, I bet that vixen devil would've been looking much worse with me involved."

"Are you always so superficial?" I asked him .

"Me? Superficial!" Cheshire cried, "I perish the thought Senor Gonzales, I was only joking." He looked at my sombrero, "I _loove_ that hat. Since you won't be needing it anymore, do you mind bequeathing it to me?" He parroted himself.

I rolled my eyes and got into my car, which was a 1997 Lincoln. Cheshire appeared in the passenger. I put in an unmarked CD, not knowing what would come up. Very fittingly (especially since Cheshire was in the car) a song from 1967 played.

"Playing allegorist today eh?" He said with a laugh.

We sang the song, as I drove down the street. The song was about taking drugs, it could've have been more obvious than _Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds_ by The Beatles or _Cocaine_ by Eric Calpton , but honestly, irony aside, we didn't care. The song had a catchy guitar riff and it was one of those 1960's songs that just had certain Height-Ashbury feel to it:

_One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you, don't do anything at all, go ask Alice, when she's ten feet tall. And if you go chasing rabbits, and you know you're going to fall, tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar, has given you the call, call Alice, when she was just small. When the men on the chessboard, get up and tell you where to go, and you've just had some kind of mushroom, and your mind is moving low, go ask Alice, I think she'll know. When logic and proportion, have fallen sloppy dead, and the White Knight is talking backwards, and the Red Queen's off with her head. Remember what the dormouse said, reed your head, feed your head._

* * *

**References: **

**This story played with references and here are the ones that I made: **

**"The Chaplin Situation": **Reference to the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Charlie Chaplin had money in the stock market and his adviser told him to quickly get his money out of the stock market before it crashed.

**"slaughtered by Marcus Aurelius Ontario who was successful in all campaigns against Parthia along with Lucius Verus Vega": **Reference to the Roman Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. These two lead a successful war against Parthia, who was attacking them. Marcus was the 16th Emperor of Rome, Lucis Verus was the 17th.

**"Justice and Nike": **Reference to Nike, who in Greek mythology was the Angel of Victory. Her symbol was the swoosh. The Nike Shoe Company is named after her.

**"She cackled like one of the Weird Sisters, menacing, evil, here I was, a regular Banquo, being strangled by Lady Macbeth, her mind talked of wicked knives, bloody hands, and saying 'Hold! Hold!' as if her status depended on my death. ": **Reference to_ Macbeth_ by William Shakespeare.


End file.
